


Don't Get Too Close (It's Dark Inside)

by wanheda_two_heda



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gang, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, Illegal Fights, Minor Violence, Mutual Pining, Protective Bellamy, Tattooed Bellamy, Tinder, Underground boxing ring
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-04-04 05:54:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14013612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanheda_two_heda/pseuds/wanheda_two_heda
Summary: When Clarke swipes right on the cute guy she comes across on Tinder, she never expects it to be her initiation into Bellamy's world of illegal underground fights and gang violence, but by the time she realizes what she's stumbled into, she's too far invested to turn around





	1. I Never Said That I Want This

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly could not have done any of this without the help of my absolutely incredible betas [Elyse](http://mynameisnotkatlyn.tumblr.com/), [Lindsay](http://the-most-beautiful-broom.tumblr.com/), [Ezri](https://bel-ami-blake.tumblr.com/), and [@emoreeblue](https://emoreeblue.tumblr.com/). I love you guys so much for all of your help and constant support!
> 
> Also, points to the first person to figure out the title naming scheme.

“Oh, my God!” Raven yelled, throwing her head back in laughter. 

Octavia coughed a few times to clear the wine from her lungs as Clarke patted her on the back. 

“You guys have to see this one,” Raven said, turning her phone towards the two girls. 

“Holy shit,” Octavia said, laughing, as she took the phone and showed Clarke.

Their weekly girls’ night had quickly turned into sitting around drinking wine while laughing at the people who come up on Raven’s Tinder. 

“ _ I want a girl who respects that I’m a real man _ ?!” Clarke read incredulously. “What even is this? This is worse than the last one who just straight up said that he was looking for a one-night stand! Tinder is awful!”

“It is,” Raven agreed, still not fully recovered from her laughing fit. “No wonder this guy is single, if that’s how he approaches dating.”

“I still can’t get over the guy who messaged you asking to sleep with him because he’s never  _ done a brown girl before _ ,” Octavia said, recalling one of their earlier matches Raven had made.

“Clarke, you totally need to get a profile,” Raven insisted for the millionth time. 

“Didn’t we just agree that Tinder is awful?” Clarke said with a raised brow, leaning back on the couch and taking a sip of her chardonnay. 

“Yes!” Octavia said. “And that’s why you need to get one! We need to laugh at the desperate guys who hit on you, too, not just Raven!”

“Why don’t you make a profile then?” Clarke countered. “We can laugh at the desperate people who hit on you.”

“Because I have Niylah. I don’t need a dating profile,” Octavia said.

“And I do?”

“How long has it been?” Raven asked with a smirk.

“We’re not going there,” Clarke said, reaching for a chip out of the bowl on Raven’s coffee table.

“Exactly! You need to date! And Tinder is a perfect start!” Raven said, like they hadn’t already had this conversation at least five times already.

“Neither of you have shown me one profile that even remotely sounds like someone I could date,” Clarke said. It really had been a long time since her relationship with Lexa had ended.

“Okay, let me make your profile for you, and if you don’t have a single valid option by next Friday, you can go back to being single forever,” Raven tried.

Clarke paused to think it over, relenting with a sigh and handing her best friend her phone. “Fine. But nothing embarrassing goes on my profile.” Raven grinned wickedly. “Raven!”

“Fine, fine! But I’m using sexy pictures of you, because as your friend, I want the best for you, so that means that I’m going to do my best to get you laid.”

Clarke groaned and rolled her eyes. Octavia only laughed.

By the end of the night, she already had ten matches. Raven and Octavia had, thankfully, been picky about their right swipes. Messages had started coming in almost instantly afterwards, and all three of them had had a good laugh, messaging her matches back, countering their absurd pick-up lines and conversation starters with equally as absurd lines of their own. The most ridiculous so far had been a girl a few years older than Clarke, telling her that she`d swiped right because Clarke was pretty enough that it helped her overlook the fact that Clarke was a male name. Raven had fired back quickly, and Octavia had nearly fallen off the couch at their friend’s witty comebacks. 

“Remember,” Raven said as Clarke was about to leave, “date. Next week.”

“No promises,” Clarke said with a smile as she walked out the door. 

“At least try!” 

“ _ Don’t be creepy _ sets the bar really low, Rae.”

“You and Raven are normal, and you’re both on Tinder,” Octavia said after hugging Raven goodbye. 

“What’s that supposed to mean, Blake?” Raven said.

“I mean that if there’s at least two normal, hot, intelligent women on Tinder in Ark, then there has to be at least one normal, hot, intelligent person out there for Clarke to find,” she reasoned.

“Yeah,” Clarke mumbled. “It’s just a matter of weeding through the ones that want me to send them pictures of my feet, first.” 

Octavia laughed and kissed Clarke’s cheek, waving goodbye to her friends before walking to her own apartment at the end of the hall. 

“Text me when you get home,” Raven said as Clarke headed to the elevator.

“Will do.”

 

The streets were quiet as Clarke walked the three blocks back to her own building. Curiosity having gotten the best of her, she pulled out her phone and opened Tinder. If nothing good came out of it, at least she’d have a few more screenshots to send to her friends. After a couple dozen swipes left, though, she came across a profile that made her stop. 

Deep brown eyes looked up at her through a mop of black curls from her phone screen. The profile said his name was Bellamy and that he was 27 years old. She looked through his pictures, and he bore the same teasing smirk throughout all of them. In one, she could see that his face was covered in freckles. It was the first time she’d ever really seen anyone that she thought was hot and then found to be cute, too. He was with a group of guys around a pool table in one picture, standing with two girls that had very obviously been cropped out in an other, but it was the last picture that really made her breath catch. Someone else had taken this picture of him as he lounged on a couch, book in hand, black curls in a wild disarray. He wore black-rimmed glasses and looked relaxed in a way that stood out from all of his other pictures.

_ Sister thinks I need better friends, _ his profile said.  _ My expectations are pretty low, but I’ve got nothing better to do, so let’s chat & have some fun? _

_ Teacher _

_ 5’11 (because for some reason that matters?) _

_ Leo _

_ I can cook _

 

Clarke smiled, and without thinking much of it, she swiped her thumb across the screen, sending his profile to the right. A notification popped up.  _ Congratulations! It’s a match! _

* * *

“Miller!” Bellamy called excitedly, dropping onto the couch next to his best friend and sloshing some beer out of his cup and onto his shirt. “I thought you went home.”

Music pumped out of speakers in the living room and people milled around them, talking and laughing and dancing. Bellamy nearly had to shout to be heard.

“Dude,” Miller sighed, rolling his eyes. “This is my apartment. How much have you had to drink?”

Bellamy shrugged. “Couple beers.” Miller raised an eyebrow and Bellamy let out a defeated sigh. “And a couple hot girls had me do about five shots of tequila,” he admitted.

“Sounds about right,” Miller said, going back to whatever was interesting on his cell.

“Your boyfriend’s friends are all nerds,” Bellamy comments.

“Shut up, Blake. You won’t even watch Vikings with me because it’s too  _ historically inaccurate _ ,” Miller shot back, imitating Bellamy’s low baritone. “You can’t hate on my boyfriend’s nerd friends when you’re basically the nerd king.”

Bellamy chose to ignore his friend’s comment. “Hey, have you seen my phone?”

“Nope,” Miller said, his thumb swiping back and forth across his screen. 

Bellamy stood up and started patting his pockets, looking around the room as though he could see his phone lying somewhere through all the people crowded into Miller and Monty’s small living room. “What the--” he started, and then looked down at his best friend. “Fuck off, Miller. Give me my phone back.”

Miller laughed, but handed the phone over. “Sure thing.”

“Why is-- were you on my Tinder?” 

Miller threw his head back and laughed.

“What the fuck, Miller. What did you do?” Bellamy asked, trying but failing to glare at his friend in his drunken state. 

“I’m just trying to help you out,” he said, his hands held up defensively. “I only swiped right on the cute ones.”

Before he could say anything, a notification made his phone buzz.  _ You have a new message from Clarke _ . Bellamy sighed and opened the app back up. He was surprised to find that the message had come from a woman, already having pictured Clark Kent with his broad chest and dorky glasses.

 

**Clarke:** Hi

**Clarke:** Sorry, I don’t know how people normally start conversations on here, but my friends just made my account tonight and you’re cute, so hi

 

Bellamy chuckled.

“You okay?” Miller asked.

“Still not convinced that you didn’t go out of your way to match me with a hundred weird, thirsty-ass girls,” he said, thumbing to Clarke’s profile as he walked out to the balcony. 

She was pretty, he thought, looking at her striking blue eyes and blonde curls. His favorite picture was one where she had her arms around the shoulders of two other women, a tiara balanced precariously on her head as she laughed. 

 

**Bellamy:** Hi seems to be a good start

**Bellamy:** Bonus points for calling me cute, but I usually go for sexy or hot

**Clarke:** Cocky

**Bellamy:** No, usually just hot or sexy

**Clarke:** Woooow. I don’t know what I expected out of this conversation, but now that I look back at your profile, I should have seen this coming

**Bellamy:** Are you flirting with me, Princess?

**Clarke:** Princess?

**Bellamy:** You’re the one wearing that tiara, right? In your pictures?

**Clarke:** lol I didn’t even realize that my friends had used that picture

**Clarke:** Yeah, I am

**Bellamy:** Cute

 **Clarke:** I can't tell if that's sarcasm or not

 **Bellamy:** ;)

 

“All good?” Miller asked, coming up beside him on the balcony and offering him a beer. 

Instead of answering, Bellamy flicked to Clarke’s profile and turned his phone toward his best friend. “What do you think?”

Miller shrugged. “Not really my type.”

Bellamy rolled his eyes and took a drink. “Dumbass,” he mumbled, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“She’s pretty. You gonna message her?”

Bellamy smirked. “She already did.”

His friend shrugged one shoulder. “No harm in a little fun, right?” he asked before taking a drink from his own beer.

When Bellamy looked back down at his phone, there was already a new message from Clarke.

 

**Clarke:** Like I said, I’m kind of new to the whole Tinder thing, but you’re attractive and not immediately weird (and I think you're flirting with me?), so do you want to get coffee or something?

 

Bellamy showed Miller the latest message and waggled his eyebrows. What did he have to lose?


	2. I Was Born To Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke gives Tinder dating a try. It works out surprisingly well.

“Have you been in Arkadia your whole life?” Clarke asked as she sipped on her Americano.

“No, my family moved here when I was a junior in high school,” Bellamy told her.

They’d decided to meet up at a coffee shop close to campus, and Bellamy had already been there when she’d walked in. He’d smiled and stood up to introduce himself. He looked casual in dark jeans and a black t-shirt that hugged his muscles in a way that was way too distracting if Clarke was being honest. She didn’t know if it was the leather jacket thrown over the back of his chair or the dark ink that covered one arm and peeked out of the collar of his shirt that gave him an air of rebellion and danger that she’d never found herself drawn to before. Maybe it was a combination of the two. Either way, she liked it. 

“My turn,” he said. “Do you go to PolisU?”

“Just graduated, actually,” she told him with a smile. 

“What did you study?”

“That’s two questions,” she chided. “Wait for your next turn.”

“Oh, come on, Princess,” he said over the rim of his coffee mug. “Cut me some slack.”

“Nope,” she said with a grin she hadn’t quite been able to keep off her face since they’d first said hello. Before she could pose her question, two people walked into the cafe, the bell over the door chiming. “Okay,” she said, covering her mouth with her hand as she laughed. “What do you think their story is?”

Bellamy looked confused. “What do you mean?”

“My friends and I do this thing when we’re people-watching where to try to come up with backstories for people. It sounds less stupid when I don’t have to explain it.”

“The one in pink begged her parents for a car for her sixteenth birthday,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially. 

“The guy she’s with isn’t actually her boyfriend. She dragged her brother out because she didn’t want to get coffee by herself. She’s too cool to be a loner.”

Bellamy leaned forward further, his voice a whisper only she can hear. “He’s trying to look pissed because he doesn’t want her to think that he’s happy she let him tag along but his parents have been riding him all day about the one joint they found in his bag and he just wanted to get away.”

“And everyone knows that their parents are at home right now smoking that joint that they’re going to say they threw out.”

Bellamy laughed so loudly that a few heads turned in their direction. Clarke couldn’t contain her laughter at his sheepish look, her hand going to Bellamy’s arm to steady herself. She tried not to focus on the way his muscles hardened beneath his shirt.

“Okay, all right,” he said. “I’m getting the hang of this. What about those ones?” He nodded to a group of boys sitting in a corner booth as he came around to sit next to her.

Clarke hummed, biting her lip and leaning into him. “The one in the orange has been staring that girl over by the counter, and he’s really hoping that his friend’s aren’t going to notice.”

She and Bellamy traded theories until they’d laid out backstories for everyone in the small cafe, even the two employees behind the counter, who Bellamy was sure had slept together at least once.

“It was my turn for a question,” Clarke reminded him after he’d gone to the counter to grab her a piece of coffee cake and had sat back down beside her instead of across from her. She tried to ignore the way his thigh felt pressed against hers. “Why’d you join Tinder?”

He chuckled. “Mostly as a joke. My sister said I needed better friends, and I told her I was sure I’d find one or two willing to hang out.”

She rolled her eyes. “Gross.”

He bumped his shoulder against hers. “I hardly ever use it. My friend actually took my phone and matched me with a bunch of people the night you messaged.”

“Oh, so you’re saying you weren’t even the one who liked me first?” she asked.

“He’s gay. I promise I didn’t steal you away from my friend.”

“Good,” she laughed. “Because honestly, I don’t know if I’d really want to switch at this point.”

He raised his eyebrow. “Is that so?”

She felt her cheeks heat up. “Shut up. You know you’re attractive, and it doesn’t hurt that you’re funny. Your turn. Same question?”

“No, new question,” he said before finishing off his coffee.

“Shoot,” she said.

“Where do you see this going?” he asked gesturing between the two of them. Before Clarke could answer, he brought his thumb up to wipe a crumb from her bottom lip, and her breath hitched.

She shrugged, an innocent smile on her lips. “I haven’t decided yet. But I wouldn’t mind doing this again.” She drank the last of her coffee and put her mug down on the low table in front of them.

“You wanna get out of here?” he asked, holding out his hand.

Clarke clicked her tongue. “What did we say about waiting your turn to ask questions,” she said with a teasing smile. Bellamy rolled his eyes, his hand still outstretched. Clarke laced her fingers through his. “My turn. You wanna get out of here?”

Bellamy only laughed and pulled her to her feet, leading her out of the coffee shop and holding the door open for her. The fall air was crisp, but Clarke’s hand was warm in Bellamy’s. The pair walked around the college campus aimlessly, talking and laughing and getting to know each other. Every time Bellamy bumped his shoulder against Clarke’s he’d pull her closer to his side. She was happy she’d decided to take the risk in messaging him. It was probably the most rebellious thing she’d done ever since she switched from pre-med to art history. Maybe Bellamy was just the type of rebellious that she needed.

“Where are you taking me?” Bellamy asked.

Clarke was something he never could have expected. He’d agreed to meet up with her only because Miller had been on his case for so long about about how he was broody and miserable when he wasn’t getting laid. But Clarke--she was beautiful and smart and kind. When one of the baristas at the coffee shop had slipped and spilt a customer’s coffee, Clarke had been the first to jump up and help her. Clarke was the kind of woman he could have seen himself with before his life had gone to shit. Now? She was just a nice distraction from his reality.

“You’re walking me home,” she said matter-of-factly. “What kind of gentleman are you?”

“I think you’ve got me confused with someone else,” he teased as she pulled him down the hallway of her apartment building. “I never said anything about being a gentleman.”

She stopped in front of a door and turned to face him, still holding his hand. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

He smirked, his eyes flicking down to her mouth. “Is that so?” he asked, stepping forward into her space and crowding her against the door. 

He almost missed the way she shivered before he slid his hand along her jaw and into her hair, angling her face up to his. Clarke smiled and wrapped her arms loosely around his neck. He didn’t need any more prompting and ducked his head to capture her lips in a slow kiss. Clarke pushed up on the tips of her toes, pulling him closer still. Bellamy chuckled into her mouth, his arm going around her waist. 

Clarke chased his mouth when he pulled away, stealing a few more kisses, her hands still in his hair. “You should come inside,” she said, biting her lip nervously.

“Yeah?”

Her brow creased. “I mean, only if you want to,” she stuttered.

Bellamy reassured her with another kiss, his fingers gripping her hips. “I want to, Princess,” his mouth beside her ear, fingers tangled in her hair.

“Good,” she said.

Clarke turned to unlock the door, but he couldn’t keep his hands off of her. As she fished her keys out of her bag, he swept her hair off her shoulder and kissed his way up her neck. She giggled, and god if that sound didn’t get to him. Clarke arched her neck to give him better access, and his arms wrapped around her middle to hold her close. Her breath caught when he kissed a particular spot, and she melted back against him. 

“I’m never going to get the door open if you don’t stop,” she said, and he couldn’t help but laugh darkly at how breathless she sounded.

“We can compromise,” he said, biting her earlobe teasingly.

She turned in his arms and pressed a quick, hungry kiss to his mouth. “Two seconds. That’s all I need. Just let me unlock the door.”

He sighed dramatically. “Fine.”

* * *

 

He woke up to Clarke tracing patterns up and down his arm. Yawning, he rolled onto his side to face her, and she smiled sleepily. “So, you sold on Tinder yet?” he asked, finding her hand.

“Meh,” she shrugged, already holding back a laugh. “You were okay, I guess.”

He laughed and pulled her into him. Clarke went willingly, her hands finding his hair in a way that was already starting to feel familiar. She threw her leg over his and sat on his lap, straddling his thighs. 

“We should do this again,” she said, fingers combing through his hair.

“I thought I was just okay?”

Bellamy held her in place as he slid himself up to lounge against her headboard. Clarke smiled and ducked her head, kissing along his jaw. Her long blonde hair fell around him in a curtain, and he closed his eyes, focused on the feel of her mouth and hands exploring him. When, at last, he couldn’t help himself, he held her chin to still her and then brought her up to his mouth to kiss her, his tongue sliding into her mouth when she sighed his name. 

She looked flustered when she pulled away and sat back up, and Bellamy smirked, pleased with himself. He slid his hands up her bare thighs and played with the hem of the black shirt she wore. 

“Is this mine?” he asked, his hands on the soft skin of her hips.

“Maybe,” she said, looking down. “It’s comfy.”

He smiled. “I like it.”

She bit her lip. Bellamy watched as she traced the tattoo on his right shoulder. “Tell me about this.”

“It’s nothing” he said, goosebumps rising in her wake. “I think it was my fourth or fifth. I just liked the way it looked.”

“Which one was your first?” she asked, her finger tracing absently up and down his chest. 

“This one,” he told her, taking her hand and bringing it to the rose inked over his heart. 

“Did you just like the way this one looked, too?” she teased sweetly.

“It was my mom’s favorite flower,” Bellamy said, not meeting her eyes. Even after all this time, the pain of losing his mother and having to take over caring for his sister at such a young age was still raw. There would always be a part of him that missed Aurora Blake.

“I’m sorry,” she said, leaning down to hug him. 

“I’m used to it, Princess.” He kissed her shoulder.

She sat back up and traced a scar near his right hip. “What’s this from?”

“Appendix. When I was twelve.”

“Ouch,” she said with a grimace. “What about this one?” 

Bellamy’s heart stuttered as Clarke ran her finger over a scar maring his side. He brought her hand up to his mouth and nipped at her fingertip. “Why are you so curious?” he deflected. 

She bit her lip, and he couldn’t help but stare at her mouth. “Because you’re different,” she said.

He laughed. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He could hardly focus as she ran her fingers up and down his chest.

“I don’t know. You’re just different. So, what’s the scar from?”

Bellamy smiled at her determination, but that was not a part of his life that he wanted to share with the glowing blonde currently in bed with him. He rolled over, flipping Clarke onto her back, and he swallowed her laugh with a searing kiss, his hips rolling against hers. Clarke gasped, her head tipped back and neck exposed to him. He kissed along her jaw and down to the hollow at the base of her neck, enjoying the way her breath hitched whenever he teased her with a flash of his teeth. 

“Where’d all your questions go, Princess?” he teased as he pulled his shirt off of her. 

“Shut up, Bellamy.”

Bellamy smirked. “C’mon, Princess. I thought you were curious about me. Aren’t I different?” He ground his hips against hers again for good measure, and Clarke’s mouth fell open in a soundless cry of pleasure. Her pupils were blown so wide he couldn’t even see the blue of her eyes anymore when she looked up at him. Bellamy looked down at her and smiled. He was relaxed and having fun, something he hadn’t allowed himself to do in a long time. If the only way to distract this woman, who most certainly did not belong in his world, was to drive them both insane, he’d happily oblige.

“I swear to God, Bellamy,” she said, her voice gone husky. “I can think of a million other things to be doing with my mouth right now, and if you’re not on the same page, then I clearly have been doing something wrong.”

Bellamy laughed, a full, hearty laugh, and then captured her mouth in a slow, exploring kiss, reveling in the way she hummed happily, satisfied, and ran her hands over his shoulders to hold him close. 


	3. Your Eyes, They Shine So Bright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke's friends are happy that she's finally back out in the dating world. Bellamy's roommate, on the other hand, has his own thoughts about Bellamy's new girl.

Clarke smiled as a new message from Bellamy came through on her phone. They’d exchanged cell phone numbers before Clarke had kicked him out to get ready for a movie with Jasper’s girlfriend Maya. The other woman was soft, sweet, and completely in over her head with Jasper. She’d needed a girls’ night to get away from her boyfriend’s near constant hum of energy, and Clarke had only been too happy to oblige.

 

**Tinder Boy:** Are you trying to play hard to get, Princess?

 

“Hello?” Raven interrupted, waving her arm in front of Clarke. “Earth to Clarke Griffin. What’s with the dorky smile?”

“What dorky smile?” Clarke said as she shoved her phone into her pocket. “I don’t have a dorky smile. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Who’re you texting?” Raven tried again.

“It’s no one,” she said, feeling the blood rush to her cheeks.

“Bullshit!” Raven cried with a laugh. “You’re such a shit liar, Clarke.”

Before Clarke could answer, Octavia snatched the phone out of her hands. “Ohmigod! Who’s Tinder Boy?”

“Tinder Boy?” Raven asked gleefully, jumping up to read over Clarke’s shoulder.

“He wants to know what you’re doing tonight,” Raven told her, her eyebrows raising into her hairline. 

“I’m telling him you’re free,” Octavia chimed in, typing away on the phone.

“Give me my phone back!” Clarke said, vaulting over the back of the sofa to chase after her friends who ran, giggling into the kitchen.

“He says he can’t stop thinking about you,” Raven informed her, her face buried in Clarke’s phone when Clarke rounded the corner. “I told him you can’t either, in case you were curious.”

Raven’s eyes twinkled with mischief when she looked at Clarke. Octavia kept reading the texts. “Holy shit,” the younger girl squeaked. 

Raven tried to hold back a laugh. “You slept with him!” she exclaimed, her mouth wide in impressed shock.

“So what? You were the one telling me that I needed to get laid!”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you’d actually do it! Holy shit, Griffin, when did you turn into such a badass?” Raven said, clearly impressed.

Clarke flushed. “Just give me back my phone. What did he say?”

Raven smirked. “Oh, nothing. Just that he misses your mouth on him.”

Clarke felt the heat rush to her cheeks. “Jesus Christ,” she muttered.

Raven smirked, and a matching grin appeared on Octavia’s face. 

“Are you gonna see him again?” Octavia asked.

“Not like you gave me much of a choice,” Clarke mumbled.

“Oh, please,” Raven said. “Look at your face! You totally want to see him again!”

Clarke let herself smile and her friends gushed happily. “Tell us everything!” Octavia insisted. 

“What’s his name?” Raven asked, already taking her phone out.

“No way,” Clarke said curtly.

“What do you mean, no way?” Octavia asked, still not speaking at a normal volume.

“I mean no way am I telling you his name because you’re going to stalk him on Facebook and be creepy about it. It’s not even anything serious.”

“Fine,” Raven relented, slipping her phone back into her pocket. “At least tell us about your date.”

Clarke’s phone vibrated in her pocket. “Yeah, one sec,” she said as she unlocked her phone.

 

**Tinder Boy:** I still don’t know if you want to come over tonight. It’s cool if you don’t.

**Clarke:** Sorry! My friends took my phone. Are you making me dinner? Because you keep talking about how you can cook, but I have yet to see proof.

**Tinder Boy:** Do I have to make food if I want to eat you instead?

 

Clarke laughed out loud, her head thrown back as she disbelievingly closed her eyes and shook her head. 

“Tell us!” Octavia demanded. “What did he say?” She was practically jumping up and down on the sofa in her excitement.

“Nothing,” Clarke said, her laughter quieting as she wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “You don’t want to know.”

 

**Clarke:** You are unbelievable 

**Tinder Boy:** Okay, but in a good way or bad way?

**Clarke:** In a way that I’ll see you at seven?

 

Clarke bit her lip as she waited for his response.

“Oh, my god,” Raven groaned. “Are you done flirting? I want to know about this guy!”

Clarke waved her hand impatiently. “One second!”

 

**Tinder Boy:** Sounds perfect. But you’re helping with dinner.

**Clarke:** I thought I was dinner ;)

**Tinder Boy:** And here I was, thinking that princesses were supposed to be innocent...

**Clarke:** Yeah, you kind of ruined that for me last time

**Clarke:** I’ll see you in a bit :)

 

“Okay!” Clarke said at last. “I’m done. I’m all yours. No more texting. I promise.”

“When did you guys start talking?” Octavia asked, crossing her legs as she sat on the couch. “Who sent the first message? When did you guys go out? I still can’t believe that the prim and proper Clarke Griffin put out on the first date!”

Clarke blushed. “I wasn’t planning to! I definitely didn’t go into it thinking that I was going to sleep with him.”

“But you did,” Raven said with a smirk. 

A small smile played at Clarke’s lips. “Yeah, I did.”

“How was it?” her friend pried.

“You know,” Clarke said, finding a seat on the floor in front of her friends, “I don’t remember you guys being this nosy when I started seeing Lexa.”

Octavia scoffed. “That’s because nobody liked Lexa.”

“Wait,” Raven interrupted. “Is this a thing? Are you  _ seeing  _ him?”

“I don’t know. We haven’t really talked about it.”

“But you’re texting him,” Octavia said. “And he wants you to go over tonight.”

“Yeah,” she confirmed, biting her lip. “We’ve been texting pretty much non-stop since the last time I saw him.”

“So it’s a thing,” Raven said with a giant grin. “This is awesome. Clarke has a crush!”

Clarke groaned, hiding her face in her hands. “You guys don’t have to rub it in.”

“Girl, you have it bad. Don’t even lie,” Octavia said with a laugh.

“No, but you guys don’t understand,” Clarke said, letting herself fall to her back, her hands still over her face. “He has  _ tattoos _ ,” she mumbled.

Raven laughed. “So in your eyes, he’s perfect, right?”

Clarke sat back up and looked at her friends. She shrugged. “I mean, basically.”

* * *

 

His lips traveled up her neck. “We could just skip dinner,” Bellamy suggested. “Or at least work up an appetite first.”

When she laughed, it was a breathless sound that only served to make him smile wickedly. Clarke’s hands ran through his hair as he left a line of open-mouthed kisses along her jaw. She’d come over looking relaxed and comfortable in jeans and a Henley, and he hadn’t been able to stop himself from stealing glances at her at any chance he got. Eventually, though, he’d just given up and kissed her. 

He’d spent the day trying to organize the apartment so that it would look somewhere close to clean. He’d even tried to convince his roommate to stay out for the night so that he could have the place alone with her. Bellamy couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this enraptured with a girl, but Clarke was smart, funny, and absolutely gorgeous. She’d been confident from the moment he’d met her, meeting all of his sarcastic jabs with equally sarcastic comments of her own, challenging him in the best way possible. He’d been gone the moment she’d introduced herself. 

“You’re a bad influence,” she said, tugging on his hair to pull him back up to her mouth. 

“It’s not my fault that you’re driving me insane,” he said, sliding his hands under her shirt and resting them on the smooth skin of her hips. He nosed at her jaw until she tipped her head back for him. “God,” he muttered as he nipped at her pulse point. “You come in here looking so fucking beautiful.” He kissed the hollow at the base of her throat. “And I’m just supposed to not be distracted long enough to make you dinner?”

She sighed again as his hands slid further up her shirt, and he stopped being able to see straight. 

“And those goddamn little noises you make, Princess? Are you  _ trying _ to kill me?”

She captured his mouth again in a hungry kiss that had his head spinning. “I don’t think I could find someone with as filthy a mouth to replace you with.”

He nosed his way up to her ear, his mouth nearly brushing the shell of her ear when he spoke. “Aren’t you curious to know what else this mouth can do?”

Clarke swore, and he wrapped his arms around her to pick her up. Just as he was about to make his way down the hallway, the front door to the apartment opened, and Murphy limped in, slamming the door behind him. He unwrapped Clarke’s legs from around his waist and lowered her to the floor.

“What the fuck, Murphy? I thought you were supposed to be out?” 

One look at his roommate told Bellamy all he’d needed to know. Murphy had an open gash on his forehead, his eye was red and swollen, and his lip was split in two different places. Murphy had lost his fight. 

“Collins has been training, the skinny little fuck,” Murphy grumbled.

“Holy shit,” Clarke exclaimed from behind his elbow voice from his elbow. “What happened? Are you okay?”

She rushed forward before Bellamy could stop her, and Murphy looked at him, brow raised. Bellamy shook his head quickly. No, Clarke didn’t know, and she didn’t need to know.

Murphy shrugged, pulling a can of beer from the fridge and pressing it to his black eye. “Fell down some stairs,” he muttered.

Clarke looked at Bellamy, eyes wide. She wanted to know why he wasn’t more worried, but he couldn’t tell her that this was a weekly occurrence for them. It wasn’t often that one of them came home so messed up, but they all suffered a punch or two every so often. If it wasn’t for how badly bruised he already was, Bellamy might’ve punched him for the sarcasm alone.

“Better watch out for those stairs, then” Bellamy said with a chuckle.

“Oh, shut up, asshole.” Murphy huffed out a laugh, a shit eating grin on his face at the secret they passed between themselves. 

“At least let me look at the cut,” Clarke insisted, reaching up.

“It’s fine, blondie. I’ll survive.” After looking Clarke up and down, he turned to Bellamy and smirked. “This the one from last week?”

Bellamy wrapped an arm protectively around Clarke’s waist. “Yeah, it is. Leave her alone.” 

Murphy laughed, his hands up defensively as he backed away. “Easy. I wasn’t doing anything. Just surprised you haven’t dropped her yet.”

Clarke looked distracted when Bellamy turned back to her. She was at the stove, turning on the pot of water to boil and not meeting his eyes. He went up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, tucking his chin against her shoulder. 

“Bellamy, don’t,” she said, shrugging out of his hold. 

“Hey,” he said softly, catching her wrist. “What’s wrong?”

“ _ What’s wrong _ ?” she asked, turning back around to face him. “Your roommate just came home, bloody and bruised, and you act like it’s the most normal thing in the world. And then he basically calls me a fuck and chuck and you don’t have anything to say about that? Maybe I should just head home. I don’t think this going to work out , so we might as well just leave it at what it was.”

“Clarke,” he sighed, rubbing his thumb in circles over the inside of her wrist. “My roommate’s a dick, and arguing with him isn’t always worth it. And he was right. It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to see the same person more than once, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to keep seeing you. We met, we had fun, and I like you. I wouldn’t mind if this thing between us kept going. I’d like to see what it could turn into.”

His heart stuttered as he thought about how much truth there was in everything he’d just said. It  _ had _ been a long time since he’d wanted to be serious about someone, but he’d never done it on purpose. He just hadn’t met anyone interesting enough to want to keep seeing. But Clarke was different, and that thought scared him, because there was a whole other side of his that he never wanted her to see. Keeping her in his life while keeping such a large part of himself a secret would be hard, and he wasn’t exactly sure that it was a challenge he wanted to face right at that moment. 

She turned to face him, a tentative smile on her face. “Okay.”

“Yeah?” he asked, biting the inside of his cheek to contain his grin. 

She leaned up and pressed a quick peck to his mouth. “Yeah. Let’s finish dinner.”

 

Bellamy learns that cooking with Clarke was something he could really get used to, given time. They danced around each other as they worked to finish the meal together, already in synch despite the short time having known each other. When dinner was ready, the settled in on the couch with their plates to watch a movie. Clarke curled herself into his side, and Bellamy slung an arm around her shoulders. Once the movie was over, he walked her home, her hand in his the whole way, and when they reached her apartment building, he kissed her good night on the front steps, promising to talk to her in the morning. All in all, it was the best date that Bellamy Blake had ever been on. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come scream at me on [Tumblr](https://youleftme-clarke.tumblr.com) for the next chapter!


	4. I Wanna Save That Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for what you're about to read. Actually, no I'm not. I totally warned you all that I was luring you in with a false sense of security.

Clarke hummed happily as she lay on her side, her fingers tracing the patterns of Bellamy’s tattoos across his chest. He had an arm around her, his hand running up and down her spine as she curled into him. Bellamy nuzzled his nose into her hair and huffed out a breath. He’d never stayed over for the night after hooking up, nor had she at his apartment, but these quiet moments when they lay side by side, letting their tired muscles relax, were her favorites.

Bellamy angled her head up and kissed her. “You got any plans this weekend?” he asked, genuinely curious as he tucked his free arm behind his head to prop himself up. 

Clarke’s phone rang with a new text before she could answer. “One sec,” she told him with a smile, rolling away from him to get her phone off of the bedside table.

 

**Raven Reyes:** Guess who has a date tonight!!!

**Clarke:** Yas girl! Tinder?

**Raven Reyes:** Tinder. Except he’s actually kind of sweet and isn’t a total dick?

**Raven Reyes:** He’s absolutely full of himself, though. I love it

 

When she locked her phone and put it back, Bellamy grabbed her wrist and pulled her into him. “Get back here,” he said, crowding over her. “I’m freezing.”

“You’re just a giant baby.” 

Clarke wound her hands around the back of his neck and into his hair, pulling him down to kiss him again. She doubted she’d ever kissed anyone who kissed as well as Bellamy, and she wasn’t going to get tired of it anytime soon.

“Tell me you’re free tomorrow night,” he prodded again, still hovering over, pinning her in place with his arms brace on either side of her shoulders, and looking down into her eyes in a way that made her dizzy. “Let me take you to dinner. Some place nice. You can dress up, and we’ll go somewhere quiet, just me and you.”

Clarke smiled. “Are you asking me on a date?”

“I know we said that we weren’t putting a label on this thing we have going on, but as much as I love seeing you out of your clothes,” he teased, eliciting a small laugh from her, “I wouldn’t mind spending time with you somewhere outside of our apartments. With clothes on.”

Clarke ran her hand up the side of his face, tracing his cheekbone, and bit her cheek to keep her grin from getting too wide. “I have plans tomorrow night. But that’s not a no. I’d love to go to dinner with you, I just promised my friends that I wouldn’t bail on tomorrow since someone’s been taking up a lot of my free time.” She winked at him.

Bellamy chuckled. “I can go if you want me to. All you had to do was ask,” he said dramatically, sighing, and moving to get off of her.

“No! Stay!” she said as she laughed and grabbed for his wrist. 

“Nope,” he said, his smile so evident in his voice. “I can tell when I’m no longer wanted. It’s okay. You didn’t hurt my feelings. I’m just gonna go.” His voice trailed off as he walked out of her room, still completely naked, and Clarke laughed, clutching the sheet to her chest as laughter shook her shoulders. 

“Bellamy, get back here!” 

He rounded the corner back into her room with his arms crossed over his chest and an expression on his face like that of a petulant child. Another bout of laughter caught Clarke by surprise, and she could tell that it was taking all of his strength to keep a straight face. Clarke stretched her arm out to him, palm up and open, inviting him back to her. He shook his head and sat on the edge of the bed. Clarke kneeled behind him, her hands traveling down his biceps as she left a trail of kisses across his shoulders. 

“Let me make it up to you,” she whispered, her lips a breath away from his ear.

In one quick movement, before Clarke has any time to react, Bellamy flips them over and pins Clarke to the mattress, her hands up beside her head.

“You sinful little thing,” he said with a grin that could light up the entire room.

“Kiss me,” Clarke said, looking into the depths of his dark brown eyes.

He did, meeting her mouth in a slow, exploring kiss, his hand coming down to cup her cheek, trace the length of her collarbone, find the arm she’d wrapped around his shoulders and lace their fingers together. Clarke sighed and angled her hips up to meet his. 

“I haven’t tired you out yet, Princess?” he asked, his chest heaving as he caught his breath.

“I think it’s going to take a while for me to get tired of you.”

He smiled and dragged her up the bed to lie her head down on her pillow before kissing her a little more harshly. Clarke whimpered and thrust her hips up again. Bellamy’s hand went to her hip and held her down. 

“Patience. I’ll make it good, I promise.”

He reached over to her bedside table and found a condom, quickly slipping it on before easily sliding into her. Clarke sighed, already comfortable with him after their earlier activities. She closed her eyes, a lazy smile on her face as he set a pace so slow it seemed designed solely to drive her insane. He traced a finger along her jaw as he continued with the easy motion of his hips.

“You’re so fucking gorgeous. I don’t think I tell you often enough how beautiful you are. Like, look at this smile,” he said, tracing her mouth before kissing her softly. 

“Bellamy,” Clarke whimpered, her heel coming up to press into his lower back, urging him to pick up the pace.

“Babe,” he chided, kissing her quiet.

“Bell, please,” she tried again, each word coming out on an exhale as she squirmed beneath him, her eyes still softly closed. 

He laughed lightly and kissed the tip of her nose. “Only because you asked so nicely,” he said, giving into her. 

When they were both finished, lying on their backs and catching their breaths, Clarke looked over at him. She had no idea how druken Tinder and a coffee date had turned into this ongoing, almost friends with benefits thing with a man whose last name she didn’t even know, but Bellamy was nice, and he made her feel good about herself, and if he wanted to take her out on a date, there was not a single ounce of her poised to object. He was exactly her type, fallen into her lap when she’d least expected it. 

“What?” he asked quietly, noticing her staring at him. 

“Nothing,” she said. “Just looking forward to dinner.”

He kissed her sweetly. “Me too.”

Before she could add anything else, his phone rang, and he had to dig through the pockets of his discarded jeans to find it. 

“What’s up?” he nearly barked into the phone. The voice on the other end responded. “Tonight? Yeah, I’ll be there. Text me the address. And tell Miller that he better drag his ass there this time.”

He rolled over and kissed her quickly one last time. “Sorry, babe. I have to go.”

“Everything okay?” she asked, rolling onto her side and propping herself up on her elbow.

Bellamy brushed away the crease between her eyebrows with his thumb. “Everything’s fine. It’s just work. I’ll call you? Or text me. And have fun tomorrow.”

“I will,” she said, smiling. “And I’m holding you to that date.” 

“Good,” he said, dropping a kiss to the crown of her head before letting himself out.

Clarke flopped back onto her pillow, pulling the blanket up tightly around her to ward off the chill in the now-empty room, and smiled. It had been a long time since she’d felt so content with her situation.

* * *

 

“Seriously, Bellamy? Again?” Octavia complained as she handed him a cloth to wipe away the blood from the cut on his knuckle that had opened again. “You look like hell, you know that?”

He smirked. “I prefer ruggedly handsome.”

A text came through on his phone, and he used his free hand to pull it out of his pocket.

 

**Princess:** Don’t miss me too much tonight

**Bellamy:** I think I’ll manage to survive

**Princess:** Ouch

**Bellamy:** If you get bored of your friends, though, let me know. My sister dragged me to her place, but I can think of someone else I’d rather spend time with than her friends

 

“Would you hold still,” Octavia said, exasperated. “My friends are going to think that you’re a psycho.”

“It’s just a split lip, Octavia, not the end of the world.”

“It’s busted knuckles, too.”

“Hey, you’re the one that invited me to hang out with your friends,” he said defensively. 

“Yeah, because you’ve been weirdly absent lately. And I know that you haven’t been hanging out with people other than Miller and Murphy since you moved back to town, so you need to be around people who aren’t so damn negative all the time.”

“And you think being around a bunch of twenty-something girls is going to fix that?”

“Who knows,” she said, shrugging. “Maybe you’ll meet someone and take her home.”

He scoffed. “I wouldn’t sleep with one of your friends.”

“Sure you wouldn’t. How’s the Tinder thing working out? Are you actually trying to meet people? I got one of my friends set up on it, and she’s been seeing this--”

Before his younger sister could finish her sentence, there was a knock at the door, and Octavia ran off to go answer it. He could hear her chatting away animatedly from where he stood leaning against the counter in her small kitchen.

“How was the date?” Octavia asked to someone he couldn’t yet see.

“It was great. He took me out for dinner. You should see the guy. Think modern, sexy pirate.”

A third girl laughed, and this voice seemed faintly familiar. It didn’t surprise Bellamy, though. He’d met a few of his sister’s friends before. 

“And you!” came Octavia’s voice again. “I’m surprised you even showed up tonight considering how you keep ditching us for this guy. I was actually just telling my brother about how he needs to be more serious about meeting new people on Tinder.”

The girl laughed again. “I told him I wasn’t allowed to bail tonight. But all of you better appreciate my presence, because he wanted to take me to dinner.”

Bellamy swallowed thickly because he suddenly remembered where he’d heard that voice before, and if there’d been any doubt, his conversation with Clarke from the day before sprung to the top of his list of memories.

“Damn, girl,” said the other girl who was neither his sister nor the girl who he suspected was Clarke. “You’ve got it bad. Look at that freaking grin.”

Octavia poked her head into the kitchen and glared at him. “Stop being antisocial, and come say hi.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bellamy said, attempting to hide his panic with his nonchalence. 

The first person he noticed when he rounded the corner was a tall Latina with long brown hair. He hesitated before turning to meet a pair of familiar blue eyes he’d already memorized. 

“Bell,” Octavia said, stepping between him and her friends. “This is Raven, and this is my friend Clarke.”

Bellamy nodded and said hi at the same time that Raven looked shocked and shoved his sister. “Hey! If she’s your friend, then what the fuck am I?”

“You know you’re my friend, too,” Octavia told her, bumping Raven with her hip. “Actually, Bell, this is the friend I was telling you about.” Octavia pointed to Clarke. “She just met someone on Tinder, and he’s normal, so your reservation are unfounded. You should see some of the stuff he texts her. It’s stupidly flirty and cute.”

Bellamy choked on his beer, his mind reeling at the thought of which of his texts to Clarke his sister could have read. Clarke’s face was red by the time he caught his breath. 

“Octavia,” she hissed.

He was saved from further conversation by the door opening and more people piling in. He excused himself as his sister greeted her friends and ducked into the kitchen to collect himself. Clarke was one of his sister’s best friends. He was sleeping with Octavia’s friend. And she wasn’t just a casual friend, but one that was around often enough to be missed when she spent time with him.

“Hey,” she said, coming into the kitchen behind him and running her hand up his spine. 

He shrugged away from her, eager to have her hands off of him so that he could think without distractions. 

“Bell?” she asked quietly, worry clear in her voice. He turned to face her, his shoulders slumped. “What happened to you?”

Clarke reached her hand up to inspect his lip, but he turned his face out of her grasp.

“Bellamy!” Octavia called from the living room.

“Just getting a drink, O!” he answered. He turned to Clarke. “I’m fine. It’s nothing. Listen, I think we need to--”

“You’re my best friend’s brother,” she said with a quiet chuckle, like it was a secret she didn’t want to get caught keeping.

“Yeah,” he said, swallowing as he tried to make the words come out. “Clarke, this thing we had has been fun, but I can’t keep seeing you.”

Her brow furrowed in confusion, and he had to fight the urge to brush away the crease with his thumb. “What?” she asked. “Bellamy, if this is about Octavia, if you don’t want her to know--”

“It’s not that,” he tried again, hoping to find the right words without giving it all away. “It’s-- I’d do anything to keep Octavia safe, and that means keeping her friends safe, too. I’m just-- I’m not a good guy, Clarke, and I could pretend that maybe I could be when it was just me and you, but not when you’re this important… to Octavia.” He swallowed around the lump in his throat.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” she hissed, not raising her voice. It was almost scarier than if she had.

He reached for her hand but let his drop to his side before he touched her. “I’m involved with some people, and you don’t… want to get pulled into it. I don’t want you to get pulled into it. I’ve managed to keep Octavia out of it for years, and I’m sorry, Clarke, but I can’t take the risk. It’s just not worth it.”

He left the room before he could stop him and decide to stay and take it all back. Instead, he went out to the living room to where Octavia sat and placed a quick kiss on her hair.

“Hey, something came up. I have to go.” She turned on the couch to face him and glared. “Please, O. I’ll make it up to you.”

“Promise?” she asked.

“Promise,” he said with a smile. 

He was nearly out of the building when a set of footsteps stormed down the stairs after him. 

“Hey!” Clarke shouted. When he turned to face her, there was fury in her eyes. “What the fuck has gotten into you tonight? You were just fine yesterday, and now you’re acting like I’m the plague and running out of your sister’s apartment?”

“Don’t push it, Clarke,” he warned, his patience wearing thin. He wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t crowd her against the wall if she asked.

“No.” She stepped into his space and jabbed her finger into his chest. He could see tears starting to well in the corners of her eyes, and he wanted to kick himself. He knew that he’d been starting to feel something for her, but he didn’t know for certain that she’d felt the same. “No, I am going to push this. I’m going to push this because you don’t get to ask me out for dinner when we’re lying in bed together one day and then give me some bullshit speech about how you’re  _ not a good guy _ and  _ stay away from me, Clarke _ the next!”

“Clarke,” he warned again. 

“Tell me what the hell is going on!” she shouted.

Bellamy was in her space from one second to the next, Clarke having backed up until her back hit the wall behind her. His mouth was less than an inch away from hers, and he can feel her breath as she panted. 

“You don’t want to know what’s going on,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “Walk away while you can.”

Without another word, Bellamy spun on his heel and walked out into the parking lot until he found his truck. He swore and punched the door, the metal buckling beneath his fist as fresh blood dripped onto the pavement from his reopened knuckles. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I honestly could not have done any of this without the help of my absolutely incredible betas [Elyse](http://mynameisnotkatlyn.tumblr.com/), [Lindsay](http://the-most-beautiful-broom.tumblr.com/), [Ezri](https://bel-ami-blake.tumblr.com/), and [@failing-at-being-an-angel](https://failing-at-being-an-angel.tumblr.com/). I love you guys so much for all of your help and constant support!


	5. I Can't Escape This Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke's friends try to help distract her after she seems down following her meeting with Bellamy at Octavia's apartment, and Bellamy spends just another night at The Bunker, which turns out to be much more than he bargained for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY THAT THIS TOOK SO LONG TO UPDATE! I'D BEEN SO STRESSED WITH WORK AND SCHOOL AND THEN FLOODED WITH ALL THESE FEELS WITH THE FIRST 5 EPISODES, BUT HERE WE ARE!

“We’re going out tonight,” Raven said, her voice distant on the phone.

“Am I on speakerphone?” Clarke asked.

“Yeah, I’m trying to pick out something to wear. I might have casually mentioned to Roan the we were going to be at Grounders tonight, and I’m kind of hoping he shows up.”

The name sounded familiar, but Clarke wasn’t sure where she’d heard it before. “Roan?”

“Yeah. Roan. The guy I met on Tinder that I’ve been out with a few times. You would have heard all about it if you hadn’t run out of Octavia’s last Friday. What happened anyway? You’ve been weird since that night.”

Clarked sighed. “Nothing important.”

“Bullshit. Trouble in paradise with Tinder Boy?”

“Something like that. I think we’re done hooking up.”

“His loss. It’s not like you’re not a catch. Did you not see the way older Blake was looking at you when we went over on Friday?”

Clarke groaned. “We’re not going there.”

“Oh, come on! You totally noticed how he had to pick his jaw up off the floor.”

“Raven,” Clarke warned.

“Fine. Whatever. Don’t listen to me. It’s not like I’m always right or anything.”

“If I agree to go to the bar tonight, will you drop it?”

“For now,” Raven agreed, and Clarke could almost see her smirk.

“You’re a terrible friend.”

“You love me.”

“Whatever, Raven.”

“The Dropship. Nine-thirty!”

The line went dead, and Clarke was left with silence in her apartment. Sighing, she decided that there was no sense in fighting it. She might as well go out with her friends and have a good time. And there was always the chance of meeting someone new, someone who would be able to take her mind off of Bellamy, who hadn’t called or answered any of her texts since he’d run out of Octavia’s apartment a week before, telling her to walk away from him. As if he thought it was that easy. She huffed and went to her closet, resolving to have a good time tonight regardless of her argument with Bellamy.

* * *

 

“Clarke!” Harper said excitedly when Clarke joined her group of friends. 

Raven was already there, chatting animatedly with Niylah over a beer while Octavia laughed with Jasper and Maya.

“There you are!” Raven shouted over the music. “Look at you, girl. This is sexy! When did you get this? Was this for Tinder Boy?” she asked, playing with the hem of Clarke’s sparkly gold top.

“Who’s Tinder Boy?” Harper jumped in, her face alight with glee.

“We’re not talking about Tinder Boy tonight!” Clarke said, shaking her head. 

“What happened with Tinder Boy?” Octavia asked, looking up from her conversation.

Clarke averted her eyes, feeling guilty about keeping her affair with Bellamy a secret. “Nothing. It’s complicated. Now, I need a drink. Who’s coming with me?”

Raven looked over at the bar and smiled. “I will.”

Clarke followed her friend around the dance floor and watched as Raven sidled up to a tall, muscular man with long hair, half pulled back. She bumped her hip with his, and Clarke turned away when the man looked down and instantly slid his tongue into Raven’s mouth with a smirk. 

When Raven pulled away, she was a little breathless. “Clarke, this is Roan. Roan, this is my best friend Clarke.”

“Nice to meet you, Clarke,” Roan said, offering her his hand.

She shook it and ignored the flirtatious smile he threw her way.

Another man walked over, this one tall and lanky, hair almost as long as Roan’s, but straight and worn loose. “Hey man, what’s up?” he asked, and Clarke noticed that he was a lot closer to her own age than Roan.

“This is Raven and her friend Clarke,” Roan said, introducing them. “Ladies, this is Finn. He’s a friend.”

“Nice to meet you,” Finn said, his eyes never leaving Clarke’s. It was like he hadn’t even noticed Raven, but the other girl didn’t seem to mind. “Do you, uh, do you want to dance?”

Clarke looked at her friend who urged her forward with a nod of her chin and a raised brow.

“Sure,” Clarke said with an easy smile, letting Finn lead her onto the dance floor.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back against his chest. Clarke let him, enjoying the distraction. Octavia and Harper smirked at her from across the club and Clarke indulged them, wrapping her arms around Finn’s neck and leaning her head back against his shoulder. Finn chuckled, pressing his lips to her shoulder. 

They danced until Bellamy was completely gone from Clarke’s mind, her thoughts entirely refocused around how Finn kept kissing her neck and shoulders as they danced. Her friends had joined them at some point, Niylah and Octavia putting on a show in the middle of the floor. Eventually, Finn pulled her off the dance floor and back towards the bar, buying her a drink.

“Hey,” Raven said, pulling her aside. “Roan wants to take me to this thing across town, and I want to go, but I don’t know where it is exactly, and we’ve only been on two dates, and I’ve had a bit to drink, so I was kind of hoping that you’d come with me. The others seem kind of busy.” She nodded to Octavia and Niylah who were making out in a corner of the bar. “You don’t have to, but you could bring Finn if you wanted to come.”

Clarke smiled. “Want me to order an Uber?”

Raven threw her arms around her friend. “You’re the best!”

“I know.”

Raven turned around, looking for Roan. “Roan!” she called when she finally spotted him. “Clarke and Finn are gonna come with us!”

“Where are we going?” Finn asked, wrapping his arm around Clarke’s waist.

“I’m taking Raven to The Bunker,” Roan said as if that explained everything. “I have a grand on McCreary tonight.”

Finn chuckled. “I can’t believe you’re betting on him again after what happened last Saturday.”

“What’s The Bunker?” Clarke asked.

“You’ll see,” was all Roan said as he led Raven towards the door. Finn and Clarke followed.

* * *

 

“I hear McCreary’s been training,” Murphy goaded. 

Lincoln cracked his neck, all easy and loose, and shrugged. “I've probably been training more. Bellamy keeps dragging me to the gym to go punch shit.”

Miller laughed. “He's gotta blow off all that steam somehow now that he's not getting laid.”

“Shut up, Miller,” Bellamy grumbled as he looked around the old musty basement, people starting to trickle in faster as it grew closer to midnight. 

“What happened to blondie?” Murphy asked. 

“He dumped her,” Miller answered as though Bellamy wasn't standing right there. 

“Why the fuck would you dump a girl who was giving you great sex?” Lincoln asked as he sized up the crowd. 

The payout would be good if he won. Both Lincoln and McCreary were good fighters, and the odds were hard to predict. Money changed hands quickly as bookies went around, collecting bets before the fighters came out. 

“It wasn't gonna work,” Bellamy said simply. 

He might be friendly with some of the Trikru muscle, but he wasn't naive. He knew better than to trust them. None of them knew about his sister, not that he had one, not where she lived, and not that Clarke was her best friend. He'd already limited what he'd told them about Clarke, understanding their curiosity, but steadfastly needing to protect her from the city’s dark underbelly she knew nothing about. He'd hate himself if affiliation with him got her hurt. He couldn't explain how their relationship had ended without bringing up his sister and putting both girls in danger, so he just didn't explain. 

“You just need to get laid again and you'll get over it,” Murphy said as he looked down at his phone, typing off a text before looking back up at Bellamy and shrugging. 

“I agree,” Lincoln said as he wrapped his knuckles. 

Murphy's girlfriend walked in as Lincoln was finishing up. Emori, Bellamy thought her name was, walked over to to Murphy and planted her lips on his. Murphy slid his tongue into her mouth and reached down to grab her ass and thrust his hips against hers. Bellamy grimaced at the show they were putting on. A tall, leggy brunette that Bellamy hadn't realized had followed Emori in sauntered over to him. 

“Hey sexy,” she purred, running her hand down his chest. “Not fighting tonight?”

Bellamy grinned at her. “Not tonight babe. Disappointed?”

“I am,” she pouted. “You look so good without this on.” She ran her finger along the collar of Bellamy’s fitted tee. 

“There's still a chance you can get it off me. Might have to start by giving me your name, though,” he said with a wink. 

She bit her lip and Bellamy wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer. 

“I'm Echo,” she said, her fingers still tapping on his pecs. “Murphy’s girlfriend said you might be up for some fun later.”

Bellamy groaned. “Are you fucking serious, Murphy? How do you even move that fast?”

Echo nipped at his earlobe. “Is that a no?”

Bellamy’s hand slid lower from the small of her back to her hip, his fingers long enough to dig in to the swell of her ass. She pressed her chest against his, nearly shoving her breasts into his face. 

“You know where to find me if you're up for a good time,” she whispered into his ear and the trailed hot, open-mouthed kisses down his neck as her hand snaked between them, making his dick twitch excitedly. 

Before he could answer, Gaia walked out into the middle of the room and the circle pulled tight around her. Murphy rubbed Lincoln’s shoulders excitedly as the other man bounced on the balls of his feet, loosening up his muscles. 

“I’ve got five hundred on you, man,” Miller said. “You better not lose this one.”

“Shut up, Miller. I don’t ever see you fighting.”

“This face is too pretty to get punched,” Miller said, breaking into a grin.

Lincoln laughed. “Whatever you say.”

Gaia’s voice boomed as she talked, projecting throughout the basement of the old university science building and commanding authority. “Welcome to The Bunker!” she said, and the room fell quiet. “Tonight’s fighters represent a rivalry as old as this town itself. As always, betting closes the moment the fighters step into the ring. You are not to interfere in the combat. They fight until a total knockout or until someone gives up. But giving up is weakness!” she shouted, and the crowd cheered in assent. “Stick around at the end of the fight to collect your winnings if your money was on the right man. Now, you all know who I’m talking about when I welcome Trikru and Eligius into this circle!” The crowd erupted into a deafening roar. “Fighting for Trikru, please welcome the man you all know as The Reaper, none other than Lincoln!”

When Lincoln stepped out into the ring, the cheers were loud enough to shake the walls. Almost as loud, though, were the jeers and insults being thrown by supporters for Eligius who wanted to see their man win. Echo came up behind Bellamy and slid a hand up to his shoulder, pressing into him to see the action. 

“And fighting for Eligius tonight, we have none other than Graveyard McCreary!”

The crowd seemed to fade away as McCreary stepped forward and Bellamy saw who was behind him. Roan King stood with Charmaine, the head and her lieutenant. Roan had always rubbed Bellamy the wrong way, too cocky and full of himself. He went through women so fast, Bellamy could barely count, and that said a lot considering the amount of women Bellamy had been with. Collins stood next to Roan, and Bellamy felt his lip curl up. Finn was a sneaky fighter, a weasley little shit who always bent the rules, just far enough to get an edge over his opponent, but not enough to get disqualified. It annoyed the crap out of Bellamy.

But Roan and Finn were not who grabbed Bellamy’s attention. Rather, his eyes dropped to the gorgeous Latina tucked against Roan’s side, the same Latina he remembered his sister introducing him to at her apartment just a week before. And next to her, standing in front of Collins with his arms wrapped around her was Clarke. Bellamy’s mouth went dry.

He shrugged away from Echo who was still clinging to him like a moth to a flame. She tried to follow him as he retreated from the crowd, but Bellamy knew the ins and outs of the basement and managed to shake her. He ducked into a room where the roar of the crowd was muted and pulled out his phone. 

 

**Bellamy:** Where are you?

 

He waited impatiently, but after no answer came through after a minute, he tried again.

 

**Bellamy:** Octavia, fucking text me back.

**Bellamy:** Where the fuck are you?

 

He paced the room nervously as he waited for his sister to answer. As he was getting ready to just give up and call her, Echo rounded the corner and smiled when she saw him.

“Hey,” she said with a lazy grin. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“Listen, I really don’t have time for this,” he snapped.

Her smile fell, and she balked. “Fine. I wouldn’t have offered if I knew you were a dick. I’ll go see someone else, then.”

“Have fun,” Bellamy said dismissively, and she huffed in annoyance before turning and leaving.

Finally alone again, Bellamy dialed his sister’s number and put the phone to his ear. She answered on the third ring, and bass-heavy music poured through the phone from her end.

“Big bro!” she slurred. “What’s up?”

“Where are you?” he snapped.

“At the Dropship with Niylah!” His sister’s girlfriend cheered in the background.

“You’re not with Clarke and Raven?” he demanded, needing to be completely assured that she wouldn’t turn up at The Bunker later in pursuit of her friends.

“No, they were here, but the ditched. I think they went home with some guys. Everything okay?” 

“Fine,” he snapped, and ended the call. 

It had been too close for comfort. He couldn’t allow his sister to fall into the life he’d worked so hard to keep her out of. It was bad enough that Clarke had somehow stumbled onto the worst possible person at the club and that Bellamy was going to have to find a way to get her out. He couldn’t deal with his baby sister trapped in the world of The Bunker. 

He was still thinking about how Clarke might not have met Finn Collins if he hadn’t ended things with her so abruptly as he walked back towards the crowd. In trying to keep her safe, Bellamy had basically handed her to his rival gang. He felt guilt-ridden and sick to his stomach. He was barely even paying enough attention to see Lincoln deliver the final punch that put McCreary out cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> COME YELL AT ME ON TUMBLR FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER


	6. I Was Broken From a Young Age

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something keeps Clarke coming back to The Bunker, until the day something shows her why she should have stayed away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for being so patient with this update. A lot has been going on, and I've loved all your support and encouragement, so have a longer than usual update!

“So that was… something,” Clarke settled on as she and Raven slid into their usual booth the morning after their first experience with The Bunker.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” the waitress asked.

“Coffee,” both girls said at the same time.

She turned and left without another word, and Clarke turned to Raven, looking for her friend’s reaction.

“I didn’t think that these kinds of things actually existed,” Raven finally admitted. “It’s kind of hot, though, right?”

Clarke’s mouth fell open in shock. “I didn’t think it was the kind of thing you were into.”

“Neither did I, but you have to admit, Roan, shirtless, fighting someone? It’s kind of hot.”

Clarke shook her head as the waitress came back with their coffees. “Ready to order?”

They rattled off their breakfast orders without even having opened the menus. It’s impossible to count the number of times they’d had brunch in this same booth after a night of drinking. Octavia would normally join them, but Clarke suspected she was still with Niylah and they didn’t want to bother her.

“What?” Raven asked when Clarke wouldn’t look up from stirring her coffee.

“I don’t know,” she said, still not meeting her friend’s eyes. “It was a little…”

“Too bloody for the almost-doctor?” Raven teased good-naturedly. 

“I’m not an  _ almost-doctor _ . I dropped out. I’m never going to  _ be _ a doctor. But yeah. The instinct to help people is very much still there, and it goes against watching people beat the crap out of each other for entertainment.”

“And money.”

“Not helping,” Clarke said, but Raven’s comment did manage to make her smile. 

“You don’t have to go back,” Raven assured her, taking her hand across the table and squeezing it reassuringly. “And it’s not exactly my kind of scene, so unless Roan brings me again, you know I won’t be going back alone.”

A look of uncertainty crossed Clarke’s face. “How much do you really know Roan, though?”

“Enough to know that he’s not a bad guy.”

“But you didn’t know that he was involved in underground fighting and illegal gambling.”

“I know he wouldn’t hurt me, Clarke.”

“Still,” Clarke said, not entirely reassured, “I don’t want you going alone. I’ll suck it up and go with you. Just tell me if he wants to go again.”

“Maybe you’ll see Finn again, too,” Raven said, waggling her eyebrows. 

“He was kind of cute,” Clarke conceded.

“Not cute enough for you to go home with him last night?”

“The fighting was kind of a turn off. That, and…” she trailed off.

“Still a little hung up on Tinder Boy?”

“It’s stupid, right? I mean, we weren’t anything serious, but I just thought… I don’t know. I kinda liked him.”

“Not stupid,” Raven said with a soft smile. “If you tell me his name, I bet we can find him and egg his car.”

“I don’t need to give you his name. I’ve been to his apartment. But we’re not egging his car.”

* * *

 

Clarke spent her week silently hoping that Raven would find someone more interesting than Roan, or that he wouldn’t call her back. For all she loved her best friend and wanted her to be happy, there was this feeling in the pit of her stomach telling her that Roan and The Bunker were a bad idea. 

Finn texted her regularly, too, but she always managed to duck out from having to make plans. Twice, he’d offered to just come over and hang out while she worked, but she wouldn’t tell him where she lived. The same feeling that had her wishing Roan would stay away from Raven also kept her from getting too close to Finn. They represented a world she wanted no part of, one that seemed dangerous and risky. Too often, she’d find herself thinking back to her last conversation with Bellamy, standing in Octavia’s kitchen, where he’d pushed her away for being a part of something too dangerous for her. It made her laugh to think what he’d say if only he could see what she’d stumbled into being a part of.

* * *

 

Her phone rang just before nine on Saturday night. Clarke had just gotten out of the shower and changed into her favorite pair of sweatpants for the night, settling on the couch with her sketchbook when her ringtone startled her.

“Hey, babe,” she answered.

“Hey,” Raven said, her voice high and cheery. She’d been drinking. “Is your offer still on the table? Because I can call and ask O if it’s not.”

Clarke furrowed her brow. “What offer?”

“The Bunker. Roan wants to go. And Finn’s gonna be there! He said he’s been trying to see you all week!”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve been busy.”

“So does that mean I call Octavia?”

Clarke let out a laugh. “And get murdered by her overprotective brother? No way. Give me half an hour and come pick me up?”

They picked up Finn after Clarke, which she was silently thankful for, because he’d been blowing up her phone since finding out that she would be joining them. He slid into the back seat of Roan’s Rover and immediately reached for her hand, not even bothering to say hello before launching into stories about his week.

The crowd at The Bunker was rather large when they arrived, and they were even earlier than they’d been the week before. Finn wrapped his hand around Clarke’s, and even if she wasn’t sure that she should trust him, she knew better than to distance herself from the only other people she knew in this place, and even better than to wander away from Raven.

“Stay close,” Finn called over his shoulder as he tugged her through the crowd. 

Clarke reached for Raven on instinct and held on tight as the crowd tried to shove past them. 

They finally reached a clearing near the far side of the dingy basement, and Clarke screwed up her nose at the musty smell that seemed to follow her though the room. The center of the basement was clear, though the circle much smaller than it had been the previous time they’d come. There were so many people packed into the room that there was hardly anywhere to stand. 

“Collins, King, glad you finally showed up,” barked a tall woman with a scar across her neck. Clarke recognized her from the last fight. “You guys bring me cheerleaders?” she scoffed with an eyebrow raised.

Roan matched her sly grin. “Something like that. They’re nice to look at.”

The fighter from the week before, McCreary, Clarke remembered, looked at her in a way that made her skin crawl.

“Relax, McCreary,” the woman said, running her hand over his shoulder. “You’ve got no competition.”

“Damn right I don’t,” he said and pulled her in by the waist to lay a brazen kiss against her mouth. “For luck,” he said when he pulled away.”

“You know I don’t need luck.”

When the small, commanding woman with bleached blonde hair made her way to the center of the circle, the whole room fell quiet, and Clarke learned why it was so packed.

“Diyoza’s fighting Indra,” Finn whispered into her ear as though she was supposed to understand. At her puzzled expression, he tried again. “Graveyard’s our main muscle, but Diyoza runs the show. He’s just her lieutenant. Last Wednesday, she found out that one of Indra’s guys has been selling his blow on our turf and they decided to settle it here. There’s a lot of money on this, and some of these people are here just because it’s so rare that these two go up against each other in the circle. Diyoza’s gonna kick her ass.”

Diyoza didn’t. Roan wanted to stay longer, to go out for drinks afterwards, but one look at Clarke’s face had Raven asking him to drive them home. There had been too much bloodshed for Clarke’s stomach to not be queasy. Roan and McCreary had nearly had to drag Diyoza off to the side after the fight. Clarke fought her instinct to offer help, but the woman was fuming, anger rolling off of her in waves.

* * *

 

“I thought we were done with that place” Clarke huffed into her phone. 

“I know. The fight two weeks ago was fucked. But Roan says this one is supposed to be different. McCreary’s supposed to be fighting this guy we haven’t seen yet, and I guess he’s really good, so the stakes are high, and I just--”

“Are you really doing this, Rae?” Clarke sighed. “He’s a criminal.”

“I know.  _ I know _ . You’re right. I just--He’s good with me. I swear. Let’s just go tonight, and I’ll tell him that I’m done with the weird, underground boxing shit, and if he wants to keep seeing me, then we have to start doing normal things.”

“I just don’t want you getting hurt.”

“He’s good at keeping me safe. I like him. I’m just not stupid enough to walk into a recurring gang grudge match alone.”

Clarke exhaled through her nose and thought back to the first time she’d gone to The Bunker with Raven, to the energy that seemed to buzz through the crowd and the excitement that surrounded the whole affair. Even if she wasn’t a fan of the violence and the blood, she had to admit that the entire thing seemed to leave her with a high running through her veins long after she’d gone home. It was dangerous and forbidden and  _ thrilling _ in a way she’d never felt before.

“Last time,” Clarke finally agreed, and for the first time, she was actually looking forward to sneaking into wherever this fight would be held.

“I love you. You’re too good for me,” Raven said excitedly.

“As long as you know it.”

* * *

 

“Clarke! Hey,” Finn called, waving them over when he spotted her and Raven through the crowd. “It’s been a minute.”

She ducked her head to hide the sheepish smile that crosses her face at being called out. 

“Yeah, sorry. I’ve just been really busy.”

“Well, I’m glad you can be here now. Come on.” He took her hand and pulled her closer to the front of the crowd. She’d never been this close to a fight, and her first thought was to hope that she wouldn’t get bumped into. “You’re in for a good one, tonight.”

Finn wrapped his arms around her waist and she tried not to stiffen noticeably. She didn’t like being this close to him, but this was his world, and it was best to just follow his lead. She’d been successful at avoiding him outside of these fights, so there was no harm in letting him keep her from being bumped into and jostled for an hour.

Raven and Roan found there was over and joined them. 

“Clarke, you’ll never believe--”

“Any takers?” a brunette with a tattoo down the centre of her forehead asked, cutting off Raven.

“You know where my money is,” Roan said, taking out a stack of cash and handing it to the woman, who took out a book. “A grand on Graveyard.”

“What about you, Collins? Putting some money on McCreary, or you don’t think he has it in him after his last fight with Lincoln?”

Finn scoffed. “Wanna make some money, babe?” he asked Clarke, before taking out cash of his own. “Five hundred on McCreary. He can kick Blake’s ass any day of the week.”

Clarke paused, turning to look at Finn because the name set something off in Clarke. Blake could be anyone. It could be a first or last name. But the uneasy feeling from previous fights had found its way back into Clarke’s gut. 

_ It’s not Bellamy _ , she told herself.  _ Don’t be ridiculous. _

“You in?” Finn prodded, poking her side.

She shook her head, her stomach seemingly caught in her throat. “No cash,” she offered by way of explanation. 

Her eyes met Raven’s, the Latina already looking at her with a concerned look on her face in the comfort of Roan’s arms.  _ Octavia’s brother _ , she mouthed.

Clarke’s eyes went wide and she stomach dropped. She shook her head no, begging she didn’t look too much like a deer caught in the headlights.  _ No _ , she silently screamed.  _ Not Bellamy _ . But she quickly learned how cruel the world could be as the same bleached-blonde came into the center of the room and announced the fight and a man walked out of the shadows, tanned and covered in tattoos. The same tattoos she’d traced while lying in bed next to him. His hair was the same, still wild and curly, and she could still feel how it felt to run her fingers through it. 

He walked confidently to the center of the room, black shirt tucked into the back pocket of his jeans, heavy boots on his feet and tape around his knuckles. He met McCreary and took up his stance, the two fighters knocking fists before stepping back and circling each other. 

Clarke’s heart pounded, and she felt like she might faint. She couldn’t watch this. There was no way she’d be able to see Bellamy get hurt without running forward. Clarke watched in horror as the two continued to circle each other.

“You okay?” Finn asked, his thumb running circles over her hip. 

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Across the circle, Bellamy lifted his head and their eyes met, electricity zapping across the room as he took her in, his eyes widening. She saw his lips move to say her name, and it took everything she had not to break away from Finn and run to him, begging him to stop. Whatever this was, it wasn’t Bellamy. She knew him. She’d seen a side of him so soft and gentle, and this wasn’t it. There was no way he was capable of something so vile and horrendous. 

“Clarke,” Raven asked from beside her.

But Clarke couldn’t even turn her head to acknowledge her best friend. Her eyes stayed locked on Bellamy’s as the small woman ordered, “Begin.”

Clarke felt bile rise in her throat. Bellamy’s words the night of their game night at Octavia’s hit her like a punch in the gut.  _ I’d do anything to keep Octavia safe, and that means keeping her friends safe, too _ , he’d told her. _ I’m just-- I’m not a good guy, Clarke, and I could pretend that maybe I could be when it was just me and you, but not when you’re this important… to Octavia. _

“I have to go.”

* * *

 

“Would you relax?” Miller said, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index. “She wasn’t here last week.”

“So what?” Bellamy snapped as he taped his hands. “Go out there and look again.”

“Bro, what’s the big fucking deal? This is the girl I matched you with on Tinder at Monty’s party, right? So you slept with her a few times. It’s not the end of the world. What’s the big deal?”

“I didn’t tell her about any of this. And she’s here with Eligius.”

“So she keeps bad company. Bellamy. What is with this girl? I have seen a ton of your one night stands in here before. Why are you freaking out over this one.”

“She wasn’t a one night stand,” he mumbled, but the doesn’t even come close to what he wanted to say.

_ She’s Clarke _ , he wanted to tell Miller.  _ She’s not just some good fuck. She’s funny and sweet and makes me want to not be some piece of shit criminal who beats the crap out of people for money. And she’s Octavia’s best friend. _ Bellamy hated himself for not knowing if that last part meant that he wanted to keep his sister safe, or if it was just another reason to protect Clarke.

“So then what was she? Because whatever happened with her, it’s messing with your head, and you know Indra will be pissed if you lose this fight.”

Bellamy shook his head, sending away any thoughts of gentle laughter and blonde hair on his pillow. “She was nothing,” he lied, because even with Miller, he can never be certain that his secrets could stay safe. “I need to get out there. Gaia’s already starting. You said she’s not here?”

Miller shook his head. “Didn’t see her, man.”

Bellamy clapped Miller on the back on his way into the circle. “See you on the other side, man.”

“Don’t get your ass kicked too hard.”

Bellamy pulled his shirt over his head and tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans. He always found it easier to move without being restricted by tight fabric. That, and he wasn’t in the mood to clean blood out of his shirt, again.

He walked into the circle with his head lowered in concentration. The crowd cheered as he approached McCreary. He hadn’t drawn as big a crowd as Indra had two weeks ago, but it was definitely bigger than when Lincoln beat Shaw the week before. Graveyard McCreary looked at him with a smug grin on his face as Bellamy met him in the middle, fists raised.

“Ready to lose kid?” he snarked.

“Shut up, McCreary,” Bellamy said, already annoyed with the other man after having spent nearly an hour worrying about what he’d say to Clarke if she happened to show up.

They knocked fists and step back, circling each other. Bellamy eyed McCreary up and down, looking for any weak spots he can exploit. McCreary just leered. Bellamy made note of an opening in McCreary’s stance, one that left his left flank open. They stopped, waiting for Gaia to give the signal, and Bellamy made the mistake of looking up. Over Graveyard’s shoulder, he saw her. Her eyes snapped to his, wide and terrified. He felt his stomach knot, having guessed that this would be her reaction if she ever found out the truth about him. She was afraid of him. Afraid of who he was. 

“Clarke,” he whispered, the name tumbling out without permission. 

“What was that, kid?” McCreary taunted. “See something you like?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Bellamy snapped before McCreary could turn around.

He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Clarke. Anger boiled inside of him at the way Finn Collins had his arms around her. She was scared of him, but not scared enough to not be here, not scared enough to stay away from Collins. It frustrated Bellamy even more, because he knew the truth about Finn’s past and where he came from. He was a liar and a thief, on the run from an arrest warrant for aggravated assault. Clarke could do better.

He watched as she tried to struggle out of Finn’s hold, and Bellamy almost said to hell with the fight and crossed the room to get her, but before he could move, he heard Gaia’s voice boom across the room.

“Begin.”

He cast another glance at Clarke, still trying to get away from Finn, and rage boiled inside of him at the way Finn kept trying to soothe her by running his hands over her. He nearly missed the first punch McCreary threw his way, too focused on the girl he pushed away to protect. Bellamy blocked Graveyard’s fist with his hand, using his grip on his opponent’s fist to pull him forward and land the first hit, meeting McCreary’s nose with his elbow. 

McCreary spat on the concrete floor, blood dripping from his nose. “Son of a bitch,” he growled.

McCreary came at him swinging, throwing punches left and right, and Bellamy momentarily forgot about Clarke, too focused on blocking sloppy punches. One connected with Bellamy’s jaw, and he knew that it would be bruised by morning, but he still had the upper hand. Getting Graveyard mad was the quickest way to end a fight, and Bellamy was planning on making this the fastest KO of his life, because he needed to get to Clarke. When McCreary stepped back to catch his breath, Bellamy stepped forward, feigning a punch to his face while landing on to McCreary’s liver. His opponent doubled over and clutched at his stomach, coughing in an attempt to catch his breath. 

Bellamy chanced a glance back to where Clarke was standing, only to find that she wasn’t there anymore. He scanned the crowd quickly, looking for her familiar blonde hair, but she wasn’t anywhere that he could see. Finn stood with Roan and Octavia’s other friend who looked around with worry etched into the lines of her face.

“Fuck,” Bellamy spat, storming forward to land another set of punches to McCreary’s face when the other man righted himself. 

When he’d doubled over a second time, Bellamy ran into McCreary’s space, his hands fisting into the other man’s hair to shove his head down as Bellamy brought his knee up. There was a sickening crunch when they connected, and Bellamy shoved the other man away, letting him stagger back before delivering a swift side kick into his stomach. Once he had McCreary on the ground, it was only a matter of three well-placed punches to take the Eligius fighter out and step back victoriously. 

He turned on his heel and stormed back over to where his crew was waiting to congratulate him, an angry look on his face. He shoved his way through the crowd of Trikru fangirls calling out his name and walked up to Miller, shoving him forcefully backwards against the concrete wall.

“What the--”

“She was here you bastard,” he spat.

“Fuck, Blake, I didn’t--”

“Save it. I need to get out of here. Car keys?” he asked, holding out his hand. “You fucking owe me.”

Miller sighed, having the decency to look ashamed. “I really didn’t see her.”

Bellamy sighed. “I just have to go take care of it. Grab my money from Kara?”

“Yeah, man. Sorry.”

He raced out of the building, pulling his shirt back over his head and pulling the wrap off his knuckles as he want. He flexed his fingers to loosen the tension in his hands as he nearly sprinted to Miller’s car parked a block away. He’d never driven as fast as he drove to Clarke’s apartment, speeding around corners and cutting the yellow lights way too close. He pulled the car up to the curb outside her building and and threw it into park.

He hoped she’d left The Bunker and gone home. He hadn’t even thought to text her, just knowing that he had to see her. He had to tell her not to tell Octavia. He needed to explain himself, to tell her that he wasn’t a bad person, just in a bad situation. He tried to steady his breathing as he walked to her door, but his heart was pounding too hard to be able to control anything.

He stopped in front of her apartment and took a deep breath through his nose before before knocking. He shifted from one foot to the other while he waited, and then knocked again, louder this time, when she didn’t come to the door.

“Clarke?” he called. “Clarke, it’s Bellamy.”

He heard something move inside, so he knocked again, his heart squeezing painfully in his chest as he waited to see her face.

“Clarke, come on.” He kept knocking. “Open the door, Clarke. Let me explain.”

He stood with his fist raised, mid-knock when the door was wrenched open. 

“I don’t want to see you,” Clarke said, standing in the doorway.

His breath rushed out of his lungs when he finally laid eyes on her. She’d changed out of the tight jeans and halter top she’d worn to the bunker and was standing in front of him wearing a short pair of black shorts and a sweater too big for her. Her eyes were red, as thought she’d been crying.

“Clarke,” he whispered, reaching forward, but she stepped back.

“Don’t,” she snapped at him. 

“Please,” he begged.

“You still have fucking blood on your hands, Bellamy,” she spat.


	7. Look Into My Eyes

He dropped his outstretched hand but didn’t leave. “Please, Clarke.”

She couldn’t look at him, eyes still focused on the red stains both on his jeans and on his hands, drying to a rusty brown. She felt her eyes glaze over, her heartbeat pound in her ears. He had blood on his hands. Bellamy was bleeding. Every other thought fled from her mind, replaced by the worry that he was hurt and the need to help. 

“You’re bleeding,” she whispered, stepping forward to reach for his hand.

He pulled it away. “It’s not mine.”

The words hit her like a bucket of ice water. Of course the blood wasn’t his. He’d been fighting. It was McCreary’s. Bellamy had another man’s blood on his hands because he was in a gang and he got into fights for money and… fun. He was just like Finn and Roan and McCreary himself. He was a part of the world that both excited and terrified her. He’d warned her away, and now she understood why. Because Bellamy was a monster.

“Can I come in?” he asked, cutting through her racing thoughts. “Please, just let me explain.”

“There’s nothing to explain,” she said. Her voice sounded far away and her eyes still wouldn’t focus as she thought about how less than a month ago, he’d made her so happy and the thought of him wanting to be with her had brought a smile to her lips and made her heart race. “I saw what you did. I know who you are.”

“Yeah, who am I, Clarke?” he challenged, only succeeding in making her more annoyed.

“Leave.”

“I will, but I want to hear your answer first. Who am I?”

She huffed and turned on her heel, stomping to her kitchen and leaving him to follow. To her surprise, he did. He shut her front door behind him and followed her into her kitchen where she took a glass from the cupboard and a bottle of whiskey from the shelf. She poured herself a drink and hopped onto her counter, raking a hand through her hair. Bellamy leaned his hip against the counter on the opposite side of her kitchen.

“I don’t know,” she said finally. “I don’t know, okay? And that’s what pisses me off because you were just this guy I met that I got along great with, and then you were this guy I was sleeping with that I really liked. But then I found out you were Octavia’s brother and you changed and suddenly you didn’t want me around. I tried to understand why, but I was just really confused and hurt, and then I learn that it’s because you’re this… this criminal that’s part of a gang and you beat people up for what? Money? Entertainment?”

He stood up, his eyes dark and angry, masking something that looked suspiciously like hurt. “Funny how you didn’t seem to have a problem with Finn Collins, though. He’s part of the same shit I am, he just happens to stand on a different side of the room. You know he’s the one who beat Murphy the night you met him at the apartment? So what? I’m just not the right type of criminal for you?”

“Don’t. Don’t you dare. Don’t act like you’re not the one who pushed  _ me _ away. You’re the one who left Octavia’s. You’re the one who told me to stay away from you.  _ You’re the one _ who told me that he didn’t want to be with me. Finn Collins had nothing to do with any of that. I only met Finn Collins because of your half-assed attempt to  _ protect Octavia  _ or whatever. How did that turn out for you?”

“Jesus Christ, Clarke! How do you not know that I needed to keep  _ you _ safe? It was never all about Octavia!”

“Then why did you run the moment you found out I was her friend?” Clarke asked, her voice loud as she slid off the counter and stood in front of Bellamy.

“I don’t… Fuck, I don’t know. I messed up. I like you, Clarke. I was serious about dinner and dating and about how I don’t do relationships but wanted one with you. But when I saw you with my sister, I just realized how important you both are, to each other, to me, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t justify bringing you into my life. I couldn’t be that selfish. I couldn’t bring you to the Bunker and have them look at you and know you’re my weakness, but I couldn’t keep fighting and not tell you anything. I couldn’t introduce you to my friends and bring you over without you slowly getting sucked into this world you don’t belong in. There was no winning. So I ran. And you made your way to The Bunker yourself, and now I only wish I’d been the one to bring you so I’d know you were safe.”

“So then why do you do it?” Clarke asked, taking a sip of her drink, because above all else, she just needed to understand. “Why do you keep going back if it puts your sister in danger?”

He let out a short, humourless laugh. “Do you think it’s something I can just walk away from?”

“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I have no idea who you are, Bellamy.”

He turned his back to her and washed his hands. Clarke listened to the water run down the drain as the blood washed away and met his eyes when he dried his hands with her dish towel. 

“Come on.” He took her fingers loosely and pulled her to her couch, sitting down and letting her take the spot and the other end. He looked up at her sadly. “How much has Octavia told you about her childhood?”

Clarke shrugged. “Not much.” 

She knew that Bellamy had pretty much raised his little sister from the few short things Octavia had told her, but the other girl had always been extremely private about her life growing up. Clarke got the sense that she didn’t have an easy life, never talked about her parents, never really had any pictures or memories to share. She didn’t know a lot about the Blakes. What she knew about Octavia was all stuff that had taken place over the last few years.

“Hear me out?” he asked, and she didn’t recognize the look on his face.

For the first time since meeting him, Bellamy looked almost… scared. She looked up at him and nodded, her chest tight with worry at what could possibly have made someone who’d shown so much strength look so small.

“Did O tell you that our mom died when she was seven?” 

She shook her head, her lips parted slightly as she watched him swallow. She ducked her head, the knowledge of what it’s like to lose a parent welling up within her. She wanted to say that she was sorry, but she knew too well how often she’d heard that phrase in her life and how little it had helped in any way, so she stayed silent and waited for him to continue.

“Cancer,” he explained. “It was almost… I was almost relieved when she died. She’d fought so long to be around for us, and I could just tell how exhausted she was. I wanted to tell her that she could let go, but O needed her, and I couldn’t stand to be caught in the middle of it all. She fought it for years before they discovered it was terminal. She tried chemo and radiation, but nothing helped. It only made her sicker.”

Clarke shifted closer to him on the couch, reaching out to take his hand and run her thumb over his knuckles while he talked. They were bruised and injured, a little like the man she sat with, and Clarke realized just how much of a person could be revealed through their hands.

“She met this guy early on, when the cancer was just starting. He worked for the company that drove people to their appointments. We could still… Mom used them when she didn’t want to take the bus after chemo, and eventually, he started offering to drive her on his days off so she wouldn’t have to pay. They dated for a couple months before things started getting serious. Mom was scared she was running out of time, and she moved quickly, too quickly. He moved in with us when she started the second round of treatments. She loved him, and he was good when she was around, but when she wasn’t, he was this whole other person.

“He would come home sometimes when she spent nights in the hospital, and he’d get drunk and scream and raise his fists. I don’t know what I would have done if he’d ever hit Octavia. His friends would come over, and I’d take my sister and tuck her into my bed, read her stories so she wouldn’t hear the people downstairs, but I knew what they were. I knew why people would come to the door late at night for hushed conversations. I saw the powder leave his hands and the cash that was slipped into his pocket. I’d tell her these stories my mom told me when I was her age about Romans and Greeks, their gods and their heroes and their monsters, all to drown out the sounds of my mom’s boyfriend fucking some hooker on our living room couch.”

“Bellamy,” Clarke gasped, sitting up and reaching for him. Bellamy shook his head.

“I didn’t want to tell her. It was like she almost got better whenever he was around. I figured she wouldn’t get the chance to find out, and there was no sense in hurting her more. The chemo was pretty expensive, and we were broke by the end of the second round. I mean, we weren’t great to start off with, didn’t have any kind of insurance, but Mom had some inheritance saved up. Octavia was barely eating. I’d bring her home some of my cafeteria lunch from school so she could have dinner. When the inheritance was gone, though, he stepped up, and he paid for all her treatments, no matter how much she protested. Never spared a dime for us, but he made her life good. I wish I’d had a way to stop him from paying for the funeral when she died. I wish I could hate him, but he was there to take care of my mother when I couldn’t.”

“You were just a kid, Bellamy,” she said, aching to wrap her arms around him. But she stayed still. 

“I could have done more. I’m just glad I was able to shield Octavia. When Mom died, I thought that was it, that she and I would be free of him, and I could just take care of her. But he ended up getting custody, arguing that he was the closest thing we had to a father since my mother never really knew either of ours. I found out the same day the custody was made official that he intended to make me repay every dime he’d spent on my mother, and more. I was his ticket to the big leagues. He started keeping me downstairs with him when his friends came around instead of in my room with O. At first, they only had me doing runs and drop offs for them, testing me, seeing if I could keep my mouth shut. I could move their coke twice as fast as any of them, because nobody suspected the scrawny, underfed kid. 

“When I started outgrowing that, when he started noticing how the cops would look a little closer at me with my backpack walking down the street at midnight, he brought me to the fights. I was just entertainment at first, used to get the money flowing before the real thing. They’d throw me into the ring with some other novitiate and watch us fight. I cried at my first one. I’d never hit anyone in my life. My mother had always taught me to be kind.”

Bellamy lifted up his shirt, showing her the scar she’d asked about, so many weeks ago, and she reached out to trace her finger over his ribs. Clarke felt energy zing down her spine, her hand burning where it touched his skin. He shivered, goosebumps raising beneath her fingers. Bellamy placed his palm over her hand, lacing their fingers together and pulling her away, tucking his shirt back down.

“That’s what being kind in my world gets you,” he said, still holding her hand. “I tried to fight back, tried to say no to fighting one night, and all I remember is the feeling of the knife slicing through my skin. I learned after that to push away what my mom had taught me, to keep it tucked somewhere safe but out of the Bunker. I was still a kid when I learned that who I was and who I had to be to survive were two different things.”

All she could say was his name, whispered quietly between them as his thumb brushed circles over her knuckles. She didn’t remember when it had become him that was comforting her, but all she could focus on was her hand in his and how right it felt. 

“Octavia?” Clarke asked.

“She doesn’t know. I mean, she’s not stupid. She knows some of it. She knows about our step-dad and about the gang and the drugs.”

“But not the fighting,” Clarke finished.

“No. I don’t want her to know. I want her as far from that as possible.”

“Is he still there? At the Bunker?”

Bellamy gave a half smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “No, he was shot in a drive by during Octavia’s junior year in high school. It was almost a relief.”

Clarke reached up, cupping his jaw and running her thumb over the bruise blossoming there from his fight with McCreary. “So why do you still do it?” 

He smiled at her. “It’s not like a job I can quit. I’ve been fighting for them for almost ten years. Indra’s trusted me with some pretty big shit. They’d never let me walk away. And those guys… We’re almost friends. It’s hard to explain. And the money is what’s putting O through college. I’m stuck, but I’m trying to make the best of it. I don’t like what I do, Clarke, but I don’t have any alternative. I can’t leave. So now you know who I am. But when I walk in there, I’m not me, I’m who I need to be to survive, to make sure Octavia survives.”

He’d leaned forward as he was talking, his voice lower even though the apartment was empty save for the two of them. Clarke noticed her hand still against his face, how close they sat, and how warm his breath was when it brushed over her cheeks. She looked into his eyes and found him looking back.

“And when you’re with me?” she whispered. 

His tongue darted out to wet his lips and she followed the movement with her eyes, before snapping her gaze back up to him, only to find that he was still staring at her mouth. Bellamy moved forward slowly, his eyes on her as he nosed against her cheek to get her to tip her head back. Her heart raced, and she fought to not pull him closer just yet.

Clarke closed her eyes. “When I’m with you,” he whispered against her lips, “I get to be someone I haven’t been in a long time.”

She felt his lips part and he was so close she could nearly taste him. “Bellamy,” she sighed.

Just as his lips brushed hers, a pounding on her door caused them to jolt apart, the spell broken. 

“Fuck,” he spat, sitting back, his breath coming in heavy pants.

She blinked, trying to get her brain to focus, but all she could see was the brown in his eyes, nearly obscured by the blackness of his pupils. 

“Clarke,” Raven called, “please tell me you’re here. I’m worried about you. You haven’t answered any of my texts.”

“Shit,” Clarke hissed, jumping off the couch and running to her front door. “Raven, I am so sorry!”

The brunette blew past her and into the apartment, stopping in the entrance to the living room to turn to her friend. “Jesus, you had me worried sick! The way you just ran out of there. Are you okay? What happened? I tried texting you but you didn’t answer, and I was scared something had happened to you. Do you want to ta--”

Clarke’s eyes darted over Raven’s shoulder to Bellamy, still sitting on her couch. He ran his hands through his hair, trying his best to not look like a teenager who’d just been caught behind the bleachers. Raven followed her gaze and blinked when she saw Bellamy.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh!”

“No, Raven, it’s not--”

“Please don’t tell O,” Bellamy hurried.

She shook her head, trying to clear her daze. “I don’t know what I shouldn’t be telling her about because there’s so much I need to process, so I’m just not gonna… I’m not gonna say anything. I’m just gonna… Sorry, I’m gonna go. You,” she said, turning to Clarke, “breakfast. Tomorrow.”

Clarke swallowed. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll see you.”

Raven left, and Clarke walked back to Bellamy, sliding her hands down his arms and lacing her fingers through his. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said with a soft smile, just for her. He pulled her closer, ducking his forehead against hers. “I should go.”

“Do you want to?” she asked, her breathing shallow.

“Do you want me to stay?”

He closed his eyes, pressing closer to her and hiding his face against her neck. Clarke shivered as his breath ghosted over her skin. She swallowed and nodded. Bellamy pressed a quick kiss against her neck, and she wound her fingers into his hair. 

“Don’t go.”

He squeezed her hip, rubbing his thumb against her skin affectionately. “Okay.”

* * *

 

She changed into her pajamas while Bellamy showered. Before getting into bed, she made sure to text Raven and reassure her that she was fine, that she’d explain everything. She was already under the covers when he slid into her room wearing only his boxers. She’d seen him this way more than once before, just as naked, if not more, but something about this time felt different. Bellamy had never spent the night before, and now he’d just bared his entire soul to her. 

“Want the light off?” Bellamy asked as Clarke put her phone away.

“Yes please,” she said with a smile.

He flicked the light switched and walked to the other side of her bed, lifting the covers and sliding in behind her. He stayed further back, pressed against the edge of the mattress to give her space. “This okay?” he asked quietly into the darkness.

“No,” she said with a small smile she wasn’t even sure he could see. “Come closer.” 

He did, and she could see a smile mirroring her own on his face. He tucked her against his side and wrapped an arm around her, trailing his fingers up and down her back. She sighed happily and lay her head on his chest, his tattoos visible as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. 

“Better?” he asked.

“Yes,” she whispered, her arm thrown over his chest and finger tracing absently over the ink on his skin. She didn’t even realize she was crying until Bellamy’s chest felt wet under her cheek.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his hand stilling against her back. A quiet sob bubbled up and she hid her face against his shoulder, holding him tightly. “Clarke?”

She sniffed, wiping at her eyes. “It’s stupid.”

“Tell me,” he said softly, his thumb running against her shoulder blade.

Clarke laughed a short, humourless sound. “I was pissed at you for the way you left things at Octavia’s. I never wanted to see you again. But then you were there, in that ring, facing off with McCreary and I just panicked. I got so scared. I left because I didn’t want to see you get hurt. And I just feel so stupid.” 

She looked up at him and saw him staring at her with sadness in his eyes. “I’m sorry for how everything happened,” he said.

“Raven hates you, you know. She doesn’t know it’s you she hates, but she was pretty pissed at the guy I met on Tinder for breaking my heart.”

“Clarke,” he sighed. “I’m--”

She cut him off, “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For telling me. Everything.”

“I’ve never told anybody any of that before,” he admitted. 

“Why me?” she asked, her eyes closed as she listened to the beat of his heart.

“Because you’re different.”

She didn’t know how to answer that, and the room lapsed into silence. Clarke listened as Bellamy’s breathing slowed, his heart still steadily beating. Her eyelids grew heavy, and she was about to fall asleep when Bellamy spoke up again.

“Clarke?”

“Hmm?”

“Be careful with Collins. He’s not… I don’t trust him.”

She smiled softly. “I know. I thought he was nice at first, but, I don’t know, there’s just something off. I told Raven I didn’t want to go back after tonight. I don’t like the way he looks at me.”

“I’ll keep you safe,” Bellamy whispered. 

“I’m not your little sister--”

He huffed a laugh. “Trust me.  _ I know _ .”

She giggled. “I just mean that you don’t have to.”

He pressed a kiss against her forehead. “I’d do anything to keep you safe, Princess. Not because I have to.”

His hand found the one she was running over his skin and he laced their fingers together, holding her hand over his heart. “Sleep,” he said softly. 

She sighed contentedly. “Okay.”

* * *

 

“I don’t want to watch you get hurt,” Clarke said on the other end of the line.

He smirked, even though she couldn’t see him. “You know that I don’t usually lose, right?”

She huffed, and it made something warm inside of him to know that she worried. “I don’t care. I know that even when you win, you get hit. I’ve seen you with the bruises. I just know what they’re from now.”

“You don’t have to come. Stay home.”

“Do you not want to see me?” she asked. He could almost see the way she worried her lip as she spoke.

He’d wanted to see her since the morning he’d left her apartment after bearing his soul to her. Knowing what it felt like to spend the night wrapped around her, holding her in his arms, his nose buried in her hair, was all he could think about. He’d woken up relaxed for the first time in ages that morning, felt her breath against his neck as she stirred. He’d gotten to see her sleep-filled eyes, hear the hoarseness in her voice as she smiled at him and said good morning. She’d held him for a long time before he left, standing in her doorway, her hair a mess and nose in the crook of his neck. He’d wrapped his arms around her and hugged her for as long as she’d let him before saying goodbye. He’d gotten his first taste at what a real relationship with Clarke Griffin could be like, and it was all he’d been able to think about since.

But she’d been busy with work, and Indra had him looking after a new recruit, so he hadn’t had the chance to see her. And then Murphy got hurt on Thursday and had to back out of his fight with Dax, so Bellamy had stepped up, wanting the extra cash. He just hadn’t thought that Clarke would want to be there after her reaction to his last match. 

“Of course I want to see you. I’ll come by after and we can order something to eat, watch a movie.”

She hummed, and he smiled. “Sounds nice. Raven wants to go, though, and I can’t let her walk in there alone. She hasn’t heard from Roan in a couple days and wants to see if he’s avoiding her. Plus, it’s not as bad now, knowing you’re there if anything happens.”

“Does she still hate me?” he asked to avoid saying what was really on his mind.

Clarke laughed, and the sound made him duck his head and smile. “Only a little. She won’t say anything to Octavia, by the way. I made her promise. She doesn’t forgive easily.”

“Do you?” he asked, hopeful. 

“Bellamy,” Clarke sighed.

He’d known he’d have to work on gaining her trust back after everything that had happened, but it surprised him how much he wanted to try. 

“Listen,” he said, “I know I can’t stop you from coming tonight, but Clarke, you have to know that you’re playing a dangerous game. Coming to these fights is one thing, but being seen with both sides? It could get us both in trouble.” 

Collins had added a whole new list of concerns he hadn’t even begun to imagine when he’d thought about Clarke and the Bunker. 

“I can handle Finn,” she told him.

“I know you can, but it’s not Finn I’m worried about. Clarke, you need to understand that if you’re with Raven, with Roan, on  _ their side _ , you can’t show any kind of support for me. You can’t look worried if I get hit. If they sense that you’re not loyal--”

“I’m not one of them,” Clarke interrupted.

But she didn’t see his point. “It doesn’t matter. Not to them. You’ve already picked a side. You stand with them. They’ll expect loyalty.”

“But--”

“No buts. I need you to protect yourself, Princess. Me stepping in could put you in danger. If you go in there tonight, you stay with Raven, and you keep acting like you have been since you started going, like I’m just some other fighter.”

“But you’re not,” she insisted.

“I am tonight. I am if you want to stay safe. Promise me.”

“And after tonight?”

“After tonight, I’m ordering us dinner and we’re watching movies on your couch. One day at a time, Princess.”

“Okay,” she said. “I trust you.”

* * *

 

“Someone’s here to see you,” Murphy said, poking his head into the anteroom as Bellamy wrapped his knuckles.

He looked up in time to see Clarke sneak in, her blonde hair pulled up to reveal the creamy expanse of pale skin against her neck. She was wearing tight jeans and a black off-shoulder top that had his head spinning.

“What are you doing here? I told you--”

“Relax,” she said, coming to stand in front of him. The heels on her shoes made her almost his height. “I snuck away when they weren’t looking. No one saw me come in.”

“I told you it was dangerous,” he hissed, his voice low.

“I just came to wish you good luck,” she said.

He looked down at her and smirked. “I don’t need luck, Princess. I--”

She cut him off with a quick press of her mouth against his. When she backed away to look at him, she was smiling. Bellamy moved toward her, his hands on her hips and lowered his mouth to her ear.

“If you’re going to risk your life to kiss me good luck,” he whispered, feeling the shiver run down her spine, “At least make it worth it.”

She gasped quietly and he spun her around to press her against the wall. Clarke slid her hands into his hair and pulled him down to her, catching his mouth in a hungry kiss. Bellamy pinned her against the concrete with his hips against hers and dug his fingers into her waist as he licked into her mouth. 

When he pulled away, her lips were red and swollen, her pupils blow wide as she fought to catch her breath. He pressed hot, hungry kisses against the column of her throat, urging her to tip her head back as he flashed his teeth against her skin.

“Blake,” Murphy’s voice interrupted.

“Fuck off, Murphy,” he growled against Clarke’s skin, unrelenting in his mission to keep drawing desperate sounds from her.

“You’re up, dick. Time to go. Fuck the groupies after the fight.”

He groaned, frustrated, and pulled away from Clarke.

“Good luck,” she whispered, stretching up to nip at his bottom lip. 

“Stay safe,” he said against her mouth.

On his way out the door, he shoved Murphy hard against the wall. “Watch how you talk to her,” he growled.

The fight with Dax lasted less than ten minutes. He let the other fighter get a punch in for the sake of the show, but ended it as quick as he could, his mind already somewhere else, with someone else, in an apartment across town.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on [Tumblr](http://youleftme-clarke.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
